Agent J
Agent J (or Agent Jay; originally known as James Darrel Edwards III) is one of the two main protagonists in the Men in Black film series, the other being Agent K. He used to live in Florida, where his father, a colonel, was killed by an alien criminal named Boris the Animal, before moving to New York where he became an NYPD officer and a VIP member at a Gold’s Gym before joining the Men in Black. Personality Agent J is a very agile young adult, having spent most of his time at the gym. He is also very resourceful, as demonstrated when he exploited the Bug's dislike of cockroaches being killed and Boris the Animal's dislike of being called by his nickname. His only weakness is that he has an occassional problem with authority. Nonetheless, Agent J's athleticism, quick thinking, and resourcefulness are what led Agent K to recruit him into the Men in Black. History Very little is known about Agent J’s early or personal life. He was presumably born in the year 1965, given his appearance as a small child in the third film, where his father, Colonel James Darrel Edwards, Jr., assisted Agent K in deploying the ArcNet and was murdered by Boris the Animal. For the next 28 years, it is unclear what J did with his life, though at some point, he became a detective for the New York Police Department (N.Y.P.D), as well as a V.I.P member at a Gold’s Gym. In addition, he was shown to have an interest in rap music and video games. He presumably owned a Game Boy, based on a quote from the second film. Appearances Men in Black Agent J (as James Edwards) first appears chasing an agile fugitive through the streets, and he is shocked when he sees him jump off an overpass, jump and climb to the upper level of an apartment complex, and when his eyelids blink vertically, making him realize the fugitive is not human; afterwards, the fugitive commits suicide. In addition, the fugitive pulls a peculiar-looking gun, which Edwards destroys. He is next seen telling the other officers about what happened. K speaks with him about the encounter, and the two go to Jack Jeebs' store, where they discover he was the one who sold the weapon in question (a reverbating carbonizer with mutate capacity) to the fugitive. K gives Edwards a card with an address. The next day, Edwards goes to MIB headquarters and competes with several others for a position with the Men in Black. Eventually, K talks with his boss, Zed, about Edwards' recent accomplishment, chasing down the fugitive cephalopoid, and they decide he's the best candidate. K tells Edwards about the agency's purpose and explains that if he joins, all the records of his former life will be disconnected, and gives him until morning to make up his mind. In the morning, Edwards decides to accept the position, and he becomes Agent J. Together J and K investigate two separate incidents in the area. First, Redgick leaving Manhattan without permission, and then a crash-landing at a farm, where Beatrice tells them that her rude husband, Edgar, was not himself, and expresses concerns that something was using his skin like a suit. K concludes that Edgar's killer was a Bug, a monstrous, hot-tempered cockroach with considerable strength and a massive inferiority complex. At the morgue, J and K examine the bodies of two "humans" that the Bug killed. One of them being Rosenberg, a jewelry store owner. In Rosenberg's body, they discover a dying Arquillian who tells them "To prevent war, the galaxy is on Orion's belt." K neuralyzes the coroner Laurel Weaver, much to J's annoyance. The duo return to headquarters, where they discover aliens across the United States are leaving Earth. They discover an Arquillian battle cruiser is currently orbiting the planet. Zed suggests that they go to Rosenberg's Jewelry store to look for clues and asks K to provide J with a weapon. It is there that they encounter the Bug wearing Edgar's skin. J attempts to stop him from escaping, to no avail, although they manage to confiscate his ship. The agents then meet with Frank the pug, who tells them the galaxy is on Earth. As J observes Frank barking at a cat, he realizes what Rosenberg meant when he said "the galaxy is on Orion's Belt", he was referring to his pet cat, Orion's collar, and not the trio of stars. They go to the morgue to search for the cat. Unfortunately, Edgar is also there in search of the cat, and makes off with Laurel and the galaxy. The Arquillians demand that MIB deliver the galaxy in one hour or Earth will be destroyed. With no other spacecrafts available nearby, J concludes that the Bug is going to try to escape using the flying saucers (which are actually spaceships) in Queens. J and K head for Queens immediately, and shoot down the ship. The Bug sheds Edgar's skin, revealing its true form. With Laurel's help, J and K are able to defeat the Bug and recover the galaxy. Back at headquarters, K reveals to J that he was actually training him as a replacement, and wants J to neuralyze him, and bids him farewell before he does so. K returns to his original life, and Laurel becomes J's new partner. Men in Black II Five years later, Agent J has become a top operative for the Men in Black, but he prefers to do his job independently, and he has had several partners for the past five years, none of them live up to his standards, so he neuralyzes them back to their original lives. He is first seen dealing with Jeff the worm in the subway. When he is sent to investigate a murder at Ben's Pizzeria, Frank the pug volunteers to be his partner, which J reluctantly allows. After questioning the witness, Laura Vasquez, and not neuralyzing her, J identifies the culprit as Serleena. Zed informs him that the agent who dealt with the incident in the past is none other than his retired mentor, Agent K. Driving to the post office in Truro, Massachusetts, J meets up with K (who has gone back to his original identity, Kevin Brown), and shows him that all of his colleagues are aliens. J, K, and Frank return to MIB headquarters, so that K can be deneuralyzed and brought back to his senses. Unfortunately, Serleena takes over MIB headquarters, resulting in J and K being flushed out to Times Square. They discover that Jack Jeebs actually owns another deneuralyzer. They pay him a visit, though he claims he doesn't have it, J gets him to tell the truth by threatening to shoot his head off, only for it to grow back every time. The process works, even though Jeebs reveals his deneuralyzer uses outdated software. J and K return to Ben's Pizzeria and find a key to a locker at Grand Central Terminal station. They leave Laura with the worm guys for her safety, and go to Grand Central Terminal and open locker C18 to acquire a watch that counts down until midnight as well as a video card, and J leaves his watch for the miniature creatures living in the locker. The duo then go to a video store, where they watch a video regarding the Light of Zartha, which makes K recall what really happened back then, and he reveals he didn't send the Light off the planet, and hid it there. They return to Ben's Pizzeria, only to find that Serleena has kidnapped Laura. J, K, and the worm guys go to an apartment to acquire some weapons, and infiltrate their headquarters. J goes up to the roof to rescue Laura, but is confronted by Jarra and his mini-clones. After a difficult battle, J is able to defeat Jarra, and stop Serleena's ship from taking off. He and Laura then rescue K from Serleena and head off to the departure point. Serleena makes a final attempt to obtain the Light, but is thwarted and killed by J and K. Sometime later, J is still melancholy about Laura's departure. K, Zed, and Frank try to console him (K reveals he moved the little guys from Grand Central Terminal into J's locker). Men in Black 3 Almost ten years later, J and K are still working as a team. At a funeral for Zed (who recently passed away), J is disappointed when K gives a mediocre eulogy for their late boss, and later asks K to do a better eulogy for him if he dies first. J is curious why K has been so unhappy since discovering a crashed ship earlier that day. Shortly afterwards, J and K investigate a health violation at a Chinese restaurant. Following a brawl with several aliens in the restaurant, including a hideous alien fish, J and K are confronted by K's recently escaped old nemesis, Boris the Animal. After neuralyzing the witnesses, J meets with K in the restaurant, and he explains to him about Boris, and that he arrested him instead of killing him in the past. J offers to help; K refuses, and after an argument, suspends J for two weeks, but after J talks back, he makes it four weeks. J goes back to headquarters and researches Boris, after which, Agent O, the new head of MIB, tells him more about K's past, and advises him not to ask questions he doesn't want to know the answer to, and suggests that he take the rest of the night off. K calls J at his apartment to apologize for being so harsh earlier, and explains that he just regrets what happened all those years ago. Boris then kills K's past self, causing the future K to vanish. Returning to headquarters, J meets with Agent O, who shows him that K has been dead for 4 decades. When she sees that J has been drinking chocolate milk, they both conclude that the timeline has been altered. At that moment, Boglodite vessels enter the solar system. J realizes that Boris has gone back in time and killed K. O tells him that to save the world, he has to go back in time and prevent that from happening, and advises him to look for Jeffrey Price. J goes to Jeffrey's store, and coerces him to provide him with a time-jump device, so he can go back and kill Boris's younger self before his future self even shows up. Going to the Chrysler Building, Jeffrey gives J the lowdown about time-jumps. Going back to July 15, 1969, J makes his way to Coney Island, knowing that Boris will kill an alien known as Roman the Fabulist there. Unfortunately, he is caught by police and arrives too late to intercept Boris. He is then caught by 1969 K, who proceeds to neuralyze him, but decides not to at the last second. J and K follow clues, leading them to a bowling alley (where J shows off some real bowling talent), and then to the Factory, where they encounter Griffin the Archanan, who possesses the ArcNet. Griffin senses Boris is coming and escapes. After having pie at a diner, they conclude Griffin is at Shea Stadium watching a future baseball game. Boris then kidnaps Griffin and destroys the agents' car to ensure they can't follow him; after a chase through the streets, J and K are able to rescue Griffin, though Boris escapes. J and K learn that to deploy the ArcNet, they have to get it outside Earth's atmosphere by attaching it to the Apollo 11 rocket at Cape Canaveral, Florida; J reveals that Boris is going to kill K there, and he came back to prevent that. K doesn't take it too well at first. They, along with Griffin, return to MIB headquarters and use jetpacks to get to Florida. They are stopped by military police, and Griffin shows their colonel (J's father, James Darrel Edwards II) the future and the reason they are there. Colonel Edwards then escorts the agents to the launch site. As they ascend the launch tower, the agents are confronted by Past Boris and Future Boris. J distracts Future Boris by provoking him and time-jumping them both, which allows him to dodge Boris's spikes and punch him off the tower while K destroys Past Boris's left arm and attaches the ArcNet to the rocket just before it takes off. Returning to the beach, J witnesses Past Boris kill the colonel, leading K to kill Boris. J then observes himself as a kid meeting Agent K, leading him to realize the colonel was his father, and that K has actually been a surrogate father to him all this time. He then returns to the future and reconciles with K. Relationships Agent K Agent K has been J’s closest friend and partner while working with the Men in Black. However, K has also been a surrogate father to J after his real father was killed by an intergalactic serial killer, Boris the Animal, which he kept hidden from him for the next four decades. James Darrel Edwards II Agent J never really knew his real father, as K spent the majority of his life taking care of him, and keeping his father’s death a secret from him. Gallery Trivia * Before Will Smith was cast as Agent J, Chris O'Donnell and David Schwimmer originally auditioned for the role of Agent J, but O'Donnell turned down the role, due to having the character being too similar to O'Donnell's role from Batman Forever. Schwimmer also turned down the role. * In the movies and in Men in Black: The Series, Agent J is an African-American man, but in the original comics, Agent J is a blonde haired Caucasian man. * Agent J is the only of the three MIB agents who is virtually unchanged from the comics to the movies and the TV show, as he was a genuinely heroic character in the original comic, protesting the amoral (and/or downright villanous) ways of the MIB and functioning as a moral compass for the whole agency. Category:Characters Category:Protagonists Category:Men in Black Category:Males Category:Heroes Category:Main Characters Category:Men in Black Characters Category:Adults Category:Live-Action Characters Category:Agents Category:Humans Category:Animated Characters